"Daoist San Shu, did you manage to refine it?"
"Barely," Xu Chuan said mildly.
Yet waves surged through Zhou Yiming's heart, for he knew that neither the Zhou Household's alchemy elder nor the pill masters they had recruited had ever successfully refined a finished pill before.
Almost every attempt had failed at pill formation because the medicinal properties clashed.
He had once heard a fellow clansman who served the chief pill master mention that this might be an ancient pill formula.
Its medicinal properties were overpowering, making it extremely difficult to refine.
It also lacked one or two crucial supplementary ingredients, leaving everyone at their wits' end.
And now, someone had actually refined it.
"Please wait a moment, Master. I'll go fetch Elder Zhou Sen right away."
Zhou Sen was the white-haired old man Xu Chuan and the others had met in the main hall.
The Zhou Household had three pill masters in total.
Only Zhou Sen had been trained by the Zhou Household itself; the other two were recruited rogue cultivators.
However, the Zhou Household was now also steadily training its own lineage members to become alchemists.
Xu Chuan nodded slightly, put the sole finished pill into a porcelain bottle, then sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion to regulate his breathing.
A moment later.
Elder Zhou Sen hurried over and said as soon as they met, "Fellow Daoist, take out the pill and let me have a look."
Xu Chuan moved the porcelain bottle in front of Zhou Sen.
Zhou Sen poured out the pill, half gray and half white, and examined it closely.
"It gives off a pill fragrance. It is indeed a finished pill, but judging by its color and luster, its quality is ordinary. It can only be classed as low-grade."
"Your mastery of the pill